A Cleaning Firm That Springs To Mind & One That Will Eventually Fall

Ready to give the Burton Mail offices a brighter look are Sean Stronach, Matt Kyles, Ryan Slater and Carl Crockford.

The one cleaning firm that Springs to mind every time: Every business wants to stand out from the rest – and Burton-based Springs Commercial Cleaning Limited is no exception. This independent commercial window and solar panel cleaning company knows why it stands out in a competitive market. Company director Carl Crockford explains the big difference. "Professionalism," he says. "It's something that in our industry is all too rare."

A family business, Springs was established in 2007 with a very clear vision of how a commercial cleaning company could demonstrate professionalism across all aspects of the business. "It's not just about cleaning windows or solar panels properly," Carl said. "Promptness, reliability, courteous staff, timely and accurate administration, transparency when it comes to pricing… there are so many ways in which we strive to 'raise the bar' and excel."

Professionalism is an enduring business philosophy that has enabled Springs to build an enviable reputation and a growing client base across the Burton, Derby, Tamworth and Stoke areas. "We service all commercial sectors and have the skills, capabilities and commitment to offer genuine value," Carl says. "Springs takes pride in providing premium, yet affordable services with focus on customer care," said Carl. "Our team are all highly trained, we are fully insured to £10m and accountability is something we take very seriously."

All Springs staff are qualified, well-equipped and work in line with health and safety best practice, ensuring the wellbeing of all personnel and visitors on site. The company also provides detailed risk assessments and method statements for all clients. "I try to put myself in a client's shoes," said Carl. "If I were a facilities manager or the person within an organisation responsible for arranging commercial window, solar panel cleaning and the maintenance of guttering and fascias on site, I know what I'd expect from my supplier."

"Our standards may be high, but they're shared by those who appreciate a more professional approach and true value for money. "Choose Springs and you can look forward to tailored service contracts, quality monitoring, cleaning conducted out-of-hours to minimise disruption and a 100 per cent satisfaction guarantee on all work."

"The Pure Water system de-mineralises and de-ionises tap water to remove impurities and requires no chemicals or detergents," says Carl. "It's powerful, consistently removing stubborn residues and drying to leave a streak-free finish on glass and surfaces, whilst being gentle on the environment. The results are better and longer lasting."

While clean windows provide a positive first impression, keeping solar panels clean is important if optimal return on investment is to be realised. "Regular cleaning makes sound business sense because dirt can reduce photovoltaic efficiency," Carl said. "We've heard of reported energy yield increases of more than 30 per cent after cleaning, so an annual clean is a small price to pay in the long term." Springs has continued to invest in its staff and is the only local cleaning company competently trained in cleaning solar panels.

Seen & Heard: Window Washers Risking Death - April 30, 2015 • New York City  ••• This has to stop. (The reader who tweeted it said not to credit.)

No Harness - No Safety Equipment

The victim, who sources said was not wearing a harness at the time of the fatal accident, fell from a building at Greenwich and Jay streets at 1:10 p.m. Tuesday and landed in front of the high-end rug store Carini Lang.

Window washer 'working without a harness' plummets to his death from fifth floor of Manhattan apartment building: A worker plummeted five stories to his death while washing windows without a safety harness in Manhattan Tuesday. The unnamed victim was reportedly leaning out of a fifth-floor unit at the Hanover River House at 335 Greenwich Street in Tribeca when fell just before 1.10pm. The window washer landed in front of a high-end rug store, with his head coming to rest in a pile of hardened snow and the rest of his body on the concrete sidewalk.

Click to enlarge.

Horrified witnesses said the victim was still breathing and conscious by the time first responders came on the scene. As they were awaiting the paramedics’ arrival, several Good Samaritans walked over and covered the man with their coats to keep him warm against the frigid temperatures, according to the New York Post. Responding EMTs performed chest compressions on the injured worker and then rushed him to New York Downtown Hospital, where he died a short time later.

The man was cleaning the window from the inside and was not wearing a harness. The window was unhinged and swung open, and he fell out  in front of a high-end rug store.

The window the man was washing was unhinged and swung open, causing him to fall out to his death. Witness Orie Cipollaro described the 38-year-old worker hanging out of the window backwards in the minutes before the deadly fall, while another bystander claimed he saw the man hold onto the window with one hand while washing it with the other, reported the New York Daily News. In an interview with the News, witness John Cataneo described a grisly scene on Greenwich Street this afternoon.‘His legs were twisted his arms were bent and he was bleeding from his hands, it was very gruesome,’ Cataneo recalled. The name of the victim has not been released as of 5pm, but he was said to be a 38-year-old man employed by Aerial Window Cleaning. 

“Any kind of contracting activity like that you have to take your safety equipment seriously and make sure you have got it and it’s in good working condition.”

A window washer fell from scaffolding and plummeted five floors to his death in Tribeca, authorities said. The victim, who sources said was not wearing a harness at the time of the fatal accident, fell from a building at Greenwich and Jay streets at 1:10 p.m. Tuesday and landed in front of the high-end rug store Carini Lang. “He was sitting outside the window, and just holding on with his left hand while cleaning the window with his right hand,” said Edin Arias, 39, a carpenter who was working in the area.

“When I saw him he wasn’t wearing no harness nothing to get him safe, nothing to keep them safe,” Arias said. “I was surprised he wasn’t wearing any safety equipment,” said John Cataneo, who works as a plumber and witnessed the fatal plunge. “Any kind of contracting activity like that you have to take your safety equipment seriously and make sure you have got it and it’s in good working condition.” The victim, who has not been identified, was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

“There was a woman standing in front of me with a stroller and she started screaming, ‘A man fell, call 911!’ I didn’t get too close but I saw his head was on the snow,” the witness, who refused to be identified, explained.

From a reader: “The strange thing about that window washer story is that about 3 weeks ago a man fell from the top floor of the Puffy’s building and landed right at my feet as I was waiting for the bus! I believe he was a window washer as well. Did you hear anything about that story? I have been wondering if he survived that fall—I called 911 right away and stayed with him until they took him away in the ambulance. Later that day I called 311 to see if I could find out about his condition and they could only tell me that he arrived at Bellevue alive.”

Window Washer Falls To His Death From Fifth-Floor Apartment In Tribeca

A man in his 30s fell out of a fifth-floor apartment while washing windows at a Tribeca building on Tuesday, police said. Click to enlarge.

A man fell from scaffolding and plummeted four floors to his death when his head landed on an iced-over snow pile in TriBeca, authorities and police said. The victim, who’s believed to have been a window washer, fell from a building on Greenwich and Jay streets at 1:10 p.m., Tuesday and landed in front of the high-end rug store Carini Lang, authorities said. “His head landed in the snow is what it appeared like. The other half of his body was on the sidewalk,” a witness said. “He was breathing. Everyone surrounded him and put their coats on him to keep him warm. His head landed in the snow pile and his legs and feet were on the concrete,” the man added. “There was a woman standing in front of me with a stroller and she started screaming, ‘a man fell, call 911! I didn’t get too close but I saw his head was on the snow,” the witness who refused to be identified explained. The victim, who has not been identified, was pronounced dead at New York Downtown Hospital.

Window washer falls to his death from fifth-floor apartment in Tribeca: A window washer who was leaning out a fifth-floor apartment without a harness plunged to his death in Tribeca Tuesday afternoon, cops said. The man, whose identity wasn’t immediately released, was leaning out to clean a window at 335 Greenwich St. when he fell about 1:09 p.m. A police source said he was in his 30s. This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Tribeca Window Washer Falls To Death From 3rd Floor Window: A window washer in his 30s fell to his death from a third floor window in a Tribeca building this afternoon. Police and FDNY officials confirm that the man, who has not yet been publicly identified, fell shortly after 1 p.m. from a window at 335 Greenwich Street. One police source told the Daily News the worker was cleaning a window without a harness. An FDNY spokesman said the man was "awake and breathing" when first responders reached him, but officials say he was pronounced dead at approximately 1:30 p.m. at New York Downtown Hospital. Witnesses say the worker landed in front of a high-end rug store called Carini Lang. "His head landed in the snow is what it appeared like. The other half of his body was on the sidewalk,” a witness told the NY Post. "He was breathing. Everyone surrounded him and put their coats on him to keep him warm. His head landed in the snow pile and his legs and feet were on the concrete."

Window Washer Critically Hurt After Falling From Fifth Floor, Officials Say (MANHATTAN) — A window washer was critically hurt after falling from the fifth floor of a TriBeCa apartment building Tuesday morning, officials said. The man, who is in his 30s but whose name was not immediately released, tumbled from the Hanover River House at 335 Greenwich St., near Jay Street, just minutes after 1 p.m., according to NYPD and Department of Buildings officials. The man was taken to Lower Manhattan Hospital, officials said. Police said he was in critical condition. Units in the building have sold for as much as $1.75 million, according to previous listings.

Window Cleaner On A Bicycle

Window washer cleans up pedaling around Downtown: Phillip Prado is building a window-washing empire one storefront at a time. A gregarious businessman with a bucket of soapy water dangling from his handlebars, Prado washes the windows of more than 100 shops a week, many of them Downtown. Beside the clear benefits of the job — no boss, no overhead — there’s another boon that some people don’t realize: the money. “You wouldn’t think a guy like me with a bucket on his bike has a boat and antique cars, but it’s a good business,” Prado said as he swabbed the windows of the Reade St. Animal Hospital on a recent morning. “Window-washing does OK for itself.”
Prado, 45, started Squeaky Clean Windows five years ago, after selling a similar business in Staten Island. Since then, his electric bike has become a familiar sight on Lower Manhattan’s streets, even on the coldest days of winter. While many window-washers take the winter off, glass accumulates grime year-round, so Prado works year-round, too. He wears waterproof gloves from Alaska and a battery-operated heated suit that keeps him at a toasty 78 degrees. “Even when it’s snowing, I’ll go out with antifreeze to wash the windows,” Prado said.
It was unseasonably warm one morning last week and Prado didn’t need any gloves at all as he washed windows up and down the streets of Tribeca. Prado worked quickly, splashing suds on the glass with a feathery wand, and then using one of his three squeegees to wipe the windows dry. After cleaning up any drips with a rag, he tossed his tools in his bucket and kicked off to the next location.
Tribeca’s narrow storefronts took Prado only a few minutes to clean, and he does them weekly for $40 to several hundred dollars a month. He charges more money for larger stores like ABC Carpet or places with lots of windows like Buckle My Shoe nursery school. Prado also washes windows for chains like CVS and Le Pain Quotidien, along with the Yankees’ and Mets’ retail stores. Prado drums up business the old-fashioned way: by going door-to-door, looking for dirty windows and offering his services. That’s how Prado met Bruce Martin, who opened the Reade St. Animal Hospital with his wife last fall and quickly realized that he couldn’t clean the tall panes by himself. “I knew I needed a real window-washer, but I didn’t know where to find one,” Martin said. When Prado introduced himself, Martin was impressed by his friendliness and his willingness to work through the winter, so he hired him on the spot.
Many small business owners try to clean their windows themselves, but without the right supplies the task isn’t as simple as it sounds. “He makes it look easy, but it’s not that easy when you try to do it yourself,” said Dr. William Han, owner of Tribeca Dental Design on Chambers St. Before Prado stopped by, Han was using Windex and paper towels to attack the smudges on his windows. And how did he reach the top part of the windows, a dozen feet off the ground? “I really didn’t,” Han said, shrugging and laughing. “People don’t look up, right?”
Prado was born in New Jersey and took business classes at City College after high school but never got a degree. He started washing windows when he was 17, first for a union at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and then for a business in Brooklyn. Prado started his own window-washing business in Staten Island, where he lives, but he sold it when he realized he could make more money in Manhattan. Window washing is a territorial enterprise, and Prado found plenty of competition when he broke into Manhattan’s market five years ago. But he undercut competitors’ prices and won clients over by chatting with them and proving his reliability. “There’s nobody I can’t talk to,” Prado said. “I could go into the White House and talk to the president or go into the ’hood and talk to the ’hood rats.”
Tall and lanky, Prado speaks quickly and smiles easily, enthusiastically describing everything from his window-washing methodology to his private flying lessons. He wears Bluetooth-equipped sunglasses so he can answer calls from clients while cleaning windows or riding his bike.
The electric bike is essential to his business, Prado added — he used to have a regular one but the extra power boost helps when he’s putting in 12 miles a day. Although the bike cost $1,800, Prado doesn’t lock it when he’s in Tribeca. “That’s the good thing about washing windows: I can see everything behind me,” Prado said, laughing. A bike is also better than a car, he noted, before taking off the wrong way up Greenwich St. and then turning the wrong way down Reade — a 30-second maneuver that a car would have been hard-pressed to handle.
As Prado squeegeed his way through Tribeca last week, many proprietors came out to greet him. A mother sitting near the window at Yuya Nail Salon on Church St. propped her baby up to watch Prado work. The baby stared wide-eyed, with rapt attention. Prado said that when he cleans the windows of Buckle My Shoe, all the children race over to look.
Prado does not disclose exact sales figures, but he said he brings in more than a comfortable living just by working two days a week. Those two days are long, often starting before 7 a.m., because Prado does all the windows himself. “I figured the only way to do it right is to do it myself,” Prado said. “I don’t miss days. I don’t get sick. I don’t B.S. anybody.” The recession recently cut into Prado’s business, as stores close and owners have less money to spare. But Prado makes up for the losses by pulling in new clients, and he may soon expand into Brooklyn.

“I love it,” Prado said, “and I wouldn’t do anything else.”